Muslim Identity And Social Change In Sub Saharan Africa

"This volume is indispensable to anyone who wants to understand current trends in Islam in Africa." --MESA Bulletin "A must read for anyone interested in Muslim identity and social change in sub-Saharan Africa." --Religious Studies Review "The Brenner volume... develops a broader range of issues... [on] African Muslim communities than any existing study." --John Hanson These essays constitute a timely exploration of the dynamism of Islam as a force for shaping identity and for social and political change across Africa today.

While nearly one in every five people in the world today is Muslim, Islam is spreading most rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where one in three Africans today practices a form of Islam. Sub-Saharan Africa is today home to over 150 million Muslims. Although immensely varied, African Islam, the authors demonstrate, is defined by three overarching beliefs. First, African Islam is local Islam, with no ordained clergy or international body to regulate doctrine. At the same time, the importance of Islam as a source of communal identity, both within African societies and as part of the worldwide Islamic community, is a defining feature of the African Muslim worldview. Finally, there is a pervasive belief among African Muslims that the West is on a new crusade against Islam. At a time of growing interest in the worldwide expansion of Islam, the Islamic revival in Africa deserves special attention. With in-depth coverage of Islam in countries across Sub-Saharan Africa, Pride, Faith, and Fear provides both a general overview of African Islam and a detailed picture of Muslim politics--which are increasingly national politics--in some of Africa's most populous regions.

"I know of no one who has taken such an ambitious swath of time and done such a good job of showing the continuity and change across those one hundred years. . . . a splendid achievement, the result of decades of research and reflection." —David Robinson Controlling Knowledge examines the history of West African Muslim society in the Republic of Mali, formerly the Soudan Français, in the 20th century. Focusing on the transformation of Muslim institutions—especially modernized Muslim schools (médersas) and voluntary organizations—over the past hundred years, Louis Brenner uncovers the social and political processes that have produced new forms, definitions, and expressions of Islam that are patently different from those that prevailed a century earlier. Brenner's study shows that Muslim society in Mali is religiously pluralistic and that it has developed different ways of relating religious obligations to prevailing social and political conditions. Although they were heavily influenced by French and Middle Eastern models, Brenner demonstrates that it was in opposition to French colonial authority that the first médersas and voluntary associations appeared. The complex array of power relations within which these institutions evolved, under French colonial rule and in the postcolonial secularist state, is revealed in this thoughtful book. Controlling Knowledge makes a major contribution to our understanding of Muslim history in Mali and West Africa, both in recent decades and over the long term.

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This book illuminates the complex and constantly shifting social and cultural dynamics that shape people's identity. Specifically, the volume focuses on the intersections of gender with, culture and identity, and at different historical epochs; on the way men and women define themselves and are defined by diverse peoples and cultures across time and space in sub-Saharan Africa. The discussions presented in this anthology primarily focus on 'being' as 'a state' or 'condition', defined by sex identity, and how this identity shifts, and hence 'becoming', assuming diverse meanings in disparate societies, contexts, and time. The discourse, therefore, moves from how the perception of the self in cultural and historical contexts has informed actions and at some other times shaped interpretations given to historical facts, to how changing economic realities also shape the definitions and constructions of social and relational issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. The historical trajectories of Islamic religion, colonialism and Christian missionary activities in sub-Saharan Africa have shaped the worlds of the peoples of the region and impacted on gender relations.

Exploring the history and religious community of a group of Muslim Sufi mystics in colonial French West Africa, this study shows the relationship between religious, social and economic change in the region. It highlights the role that intellectuals played in shaping social and cultural change and illuminates the specific religious ideas and political contexts that gave their efforts meaning. In contrast to depictions that emphasize the importance of international networks and anti-modern reaction in twentieth-century Islamic reform, this book claims that, in West Africa, such movements were driven by local forces and constituted only the most recent round in a set of centuries-old debates about the best way for pious people to confront social injustice. It argues that traditional historical methods prevent an appreciation of Muslim intellectual history in Africa by misunderstanding the nature of information gathering during colonial rule and misconstruing the relationship between documents and oral history.

Contesting Islam in Africa examines the experiences of "returnee" scholars, an emerging class of elites trained in Saudi and Egyptian theological universities, and their role in educational initiatives and the reconfiguration of Muslim identity in Ghana between 1920 and 2010. Based on oral interviews and significant archival work in Ghana and at the National Archives in London, the book addresses three questions: How did the returnee scholars conceptualize and rationalize local politics and Muslim life in a pluralistic society where Muslims are a minority? How did Ghana''s colonial and post-colonial governments react to the transnational spaces constructed by Muslims generally? And, given the returnee educational imperative, what has been the Saudi and Egyptian influence on the formulation of Muslim culture in Ghana? The book also explores the influence of local mallams, in particular Alhaji Yussif Soalihu (Afa Ajura), who was indefatigable as he almost single-handedly spread Wahhabism in Ghana. For any meaningful understanding of reform Islam and the "returnee" scholars in Ghana, its essential to appreciate the many facets of the life of Afa Ajura. The activities of Afa Ajura and his literate assistants created public controversy and sometimes led to open confrontation with religious adversaries, the Tijaniyya fraternity. These activities redefined intra-religious conflagration and turned Afa Ajura into a religious phenomenon. The many violent confrontations that ensued also attracted the attention of external actors not only interested in spreading reform Islam, but also interested in integrating Ghanaian Muslims into the wider world of Islam. This book argues that Salafism/Wahhabism was and in many ways remains a homegrown religious phenomenon that benefitted primarily from preexisting splits within the northern Ghanaian Muslim community. It also argues that transnational Salafism/Wahhabism and Middle Eastern and North African contact--especially through education and outreach programs--only provided the ideological justification and the grammar for reinterpreting the common good and for reconfiguring local social and political sensibilities. This book is part of the African World Series, edited by Toyin Falola, Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin. "The influence of Wahhabism in sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the least-investigated areas in African studies at a time when tensions, mistrust and religious conflicts have increased. By examining the role of the returnee ulama (Muslim scholars) and their organizations in creating new Muslim identities modeled on their Arab funders, in stark contrast to the Africanized versions of Islam practiced by their own parents, grandparents or relatives at home, the book promises to shed new light on the changing face of Islam in traditionally peaceful and tolerant Muslim societies of sub-Saharan Africa." -- Fallou Ngom, PhD., Associate Professor of Anthropology & Director of the African Language Program, African Studies Center, Boston University "The study of Islam in Africa has not attracted a lot of scholarly attention because the focus has tended to be on the colonial project in Africa. The great moment in the manuscript is when the author asks this question: ''How do we explain the intensity of these clashes - Muslim against Muslim - in a religiously plural country where Islam remains a minority religion?'' This is an important question because the tendency has been to see conflict between Muslims and non Muslims and yet this book promises to provide a totally different type of analysis. The manuscript provides insightful overview of some of the tensions in the past, by looking at conflicts that have occurred in the past. ... Using lucid and great narrative, analytical and interpretative style, the author takes on a rich array of issues that have not attracted a lot of attention in African history. It is a project that deploys primary and secondary sources in a remarkable manner. It will be a useful addition to literature on the spread of Islam in Africa. It is likely to have a great impact on our knowledge of Islam in West Africa in general and Ghana in particular." -- Maurice Amutabi, PhD, Associate Professor, The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya "The author was able to connect the spread of Islamic education in line with the Saudi Wahhabi doctrine fueled by the return of graduates from the Islamic University of Medina and the influx of Islamic books that promote the Salafy ideology into Ghana and the decline of Tijaniyya in Ghana." -- Dauda Abubakar, African Studies Quarterly